Excerpts from The Call of the Land

“The land is calling. It’s time for us all to respond with strength, intelligence and creativity.”

“The economic and natural worlds are mutating around us. Inescapably and immediately, we must mobilize our will, intelligence, and strength on the essential matter of producing clean food for ourselves in a way that stabilizes and heals the land. This is the most basic and inescapable idea of 21st century agrarianism.”

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“This is a primary book about food, land, and people — both a survey and a synthesis of visions, ethics, practices, systems, and networks that can make it possible for us to eat well and wisely, now and in the future. The Call of the Land demonstrates positive steps citizens, communities, churches, corporations and farmers are taking to establish a wholesome, enduring agrarian foundation.

“While there is no one solution to this deepening complex of crises, there are many workable pathways that lead to increased food security and also healing for our land.

“The existing and emerging agrarian models are oases of environmental health and stability. They bear potential to radiate out widely across the land as they are emulated, improved upon, and refined into networks.”

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“As the economic and natural worlds abruptly mutate around us, food and farms are also, inevitably, in the ongoing thrall of this blitzkrieg of change. Consider the factors in motion: finance, employment, transport, climate, oil, agrochemical and water supplies, human health, and the genetics of our food chain.”

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“In Jack London’s classic novel The Call of the Wild, the alpha dog Buck faces a moment of truth as he stands amid the tall pines in a northern forest. In a similar way, we humans stand individually and collectively upon the earth facing our moment of truth. Our call is from the land.

“As I hear it now, along with the other listeners chorused in this volume, the call of the land is exceedingly blunt and insistent.”

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“A vision of space travel inspired us to walk upon the moon. Out of vision we created digital pathways that connect us globally in a vast, interactive, network. Why not take another step into the vision of advanced agrarian culture? If we choose this path and follow it, we can encircle the earth with a sustainable culture of integrity, beauty and natural prosperity. This is the vision and the potential of 21st Century agrarianism.”

Author Steven McFadden

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Positive Pathways Forward

The Call of the Land, 2nd edition is now available.

The book sets out hundreds of positive, working models for citizens, communities, farmers, churches, and corporations to establish a wholesome agrarian foundation for our food, our water, our earth, our lives.